


Everything reminds me

by Queerlilfella



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23912620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerlilfella/pseuds/Queerlilfella
Summary: Sometimes Bucky wishes things were as easy now as they were in the 40s. At least between him and Steve.Though he has to admit he likes the modern world, and Peter isn't the worst either.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Peter Parker, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 68





	Everything reminds me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last night instead of sleeping and when I went over it again today I realized there's barely any verbatim speech, but here you go!
> 
> Also obviously I ignored the enormous shitshow that was endgame.

Back in the day things had appeared to be so easy with Steve. Sure, he was a little shit that couldn't keep his trap shut if his life dependet on it - which it had far, far too many times - and got him into trouble all the time over the most ridiculous things. But he was also the most honest, loyal person Bucky had ever known.  
Steve didn't care that he had to put newspaper in his shoes while Bucky had the newest leather shoes, he simply made fun of the way his mum made him slick his hair back, would try to ruffle through it even though he was way shorter than Bucky and always on the verge of keeling over from one sickness or the other.  
It had been so easy in the little things. Bucky helping Sarah take care of Steve when he was sick, feeding him soup and wiping the sweat off his skin. Buck having a sleepover at the Rogers' house because his father had tried to beat the shit out of him.  
The bigger things had just come naturally along with the rest. Renting an apartment with Steve had seemed like a responsible choice after Sarah Rogers death. Sharing a bed was logical, they didn't have a money shitting monkey after all. And cuddling while they slept- well they were really good friends after all, weren't they?

Bucky had taken girls on dates all the time, had tried to convince Steve to do the same often enough. He just wanted Steve to be happy. Or at least make himself forget how he could never be happy with Steve the way he would have to be with one of those girls. Not that he ever told Steve how he felt.  
He didn't feel bad for Steve when they went to sign up for the Army together and Steve got rejected. Not for the reasons Steve thought he felt bad for him. He didn't pity him because of his health or body. He simply felt bad he wouldn't be able to get to fight to honor his father's death.  
So when he found out Steve had tried to get in again and again he wasn't surprised, considering Steve had been the one to get them fake ID Papers to vote not too long prior.  
His last evening though, he just wanted to enjoy being with Steve one more time. Steve, who had tried to beat up guys twice his size, with his at the time over the top patriotism, his too big head and the long arms he still hadn't fully grown into. He had never imagined that evening to be the one to set history in motion.  
He just wanted him to be happy.

Later, when he saw this new, bigger Steve for the first time he had feared things would change. That Steve would suddenly realize how much better he could do and carry on to become one of those stuck up asshole generals sleeping his way around to get what he wanted. Even worse, when he met Peggy Carter he once more came to the dawning realization that he wouldn't ever be able to be with Steve.  
It turned out he wouldn't have to worry about either of these things. Not with Steve, who seemed to still be little Steve from Brooklyn ("Sarah's son, 'ya know?") who saved him from being tortured by some freakish organization. Not with Peggy who showed him a picture of the girl she had waiting for her at home one night, after she saw the way he looked at Steve, who, as he once more realized, he would follow everywhere.

Years later, when he woke up in this brave new world to the realization that he was in fact the one that had changed, he wanted to break down. So many lives had been taken, destroyed and changed because of what he had done. He had been the cause of so much grief and terror- no matter what he did, he would never be able to make up for it.  
Steve, however, was still the same he had been before the ice  
It was the things between them that seemed to be so difficult now. Jokes weren't lighthearted anymore, worrying looks when they thought the other wasn't looking were normal now. There was a tension that hadn't been there before and Bucky could only explain it to be his fault after he had been told about everything he had done.  
By the time he had come back from Wakanda Steve had moved out of the tower Stark himself called Avengers tower. Instead Bucky moved in, shared a floor with the other Avengers, new along with old ones. He began seeing Steve less and less- they never really talked about what had happened, what got Steve into the ice, and it seemed like Steve didn't want to talk about it either. So it was refreshing to have people around him that didn't seem to look down on him because of actions he hadn't been able to control. And yet he held back, social exhaustion seeping into his brain after a short while of spending time with the others, so many new things around him making him want to leave all this behind and go back to the little goat farm in Wakanda.

That exhaustion was the reason why one day the youngest of the new Avengers, Peter, who barely seemed older than fifteen, found him on top of the tower, glancing over the city with dark eyes. He didn't try to talk, simply sat down next to him. After a while of listening to the boy fidget next to him he said "You can talk if you want to, Peter." The boy looked at him with wide eyes; the winter soldier usually wasn't a man of words. A tired smile seemed to tug on the edges of Buckys mouth. "Your thoughts are loud enough for me to hear, buddy". That seemed to be enough to send Peter off into a rant about everything that had happened that day and probably every day before that. But Bucky found he didn't mind the rambling as he stared over the city he still had to get used to. It was weird, somehow, out of all the people in the tower Peter seemed to be the closest to a friend.  
He still saw Steve occasionally, but their conversations were stilted, in ways they hadn't been since Steve had caught him with Betty from next door in fifth grade. Sometimes when he was wandering through the tower he heard Steve talk to people about him, only snippets though, because he couldn't stand to hear what he really thought about him.  
So he tried to catch up on modern day things with the help of Peter, Shuri and sometimes even friends Ned and MJ. They watched movies together ("You NEED to see that movie, Mr Bucky!") they recommended Books (MJ knew his taste too well by now) listened to music or just talked about the latest gossip (and by that they meant politics, mostly). All in all it was a great way to distract him from his thoughts about defrosted super-soldiers with their broad shoulders and blonde hair and get him caught up on everything he hadn't had the time to do over the past 70 years.

In the evenings things usually got calmer, and that's when his thoughts would come slamming back. During the few nights he was actually able to sleep he dreamed of the screams and the faces of the poor souls he had tortured. Most nights he didn't sleep much, obviously. Some of those sleepless nights he would spend wandering through the tower, working out or doing Yoga (Ned had taught him, it was part of catching up), sometimes he would bake (Stark found it hilarious when he found him for the first time but stopped the teasing after he tasted the pie) but during the other nights he would find himself on the roof. He never asked Peter why he was there during the same ungodly hours he was.  
After some time he started talking back to Peter, who had seemed surprised at first but didn't seem to mind actually having a conversation. Sometimes they would just stare down into the bright lights of the city. One of those silent nights he gathered up all of his courage and asked Peter "Is it normal for a guy to love another guy, nowadays?". Peter nearly fell off the roof at the unexpected question, catching himself last minute before looking at him with the softest expression he had seen on the boys face. "It is normal, always should've been" he said silently, continuing after Buckys silent huff. He explained a lot of different things to him, what it meant to be bisexual for example or why it was okay for men to wear lipstick and nail polish and whatever the hell they wanted too. Peter promised to print out a few articles for him, knowing he didn't feel comfortable using the internet yet. Bucky gave the boy a short hug that night before he vanished into his room, thankful and relieved that he wasn't weird or sick for feeling the way he felt. He was glad the boy didn't pressure him into saying anything about that, though, he probably would've burst into tears.  
The next morning he found a neat stack of papers in front of his door with a little post-it note with Peter's writing on it.

He spent all day reading through it again and again, tears in his eyes when he remembered seeing people on the streets of modern New York that were accepted for who they were or at least didn't get spit on in the broad daylight, chased out of bars by brutal police officers. MJ came over that afternoon, this time wearing a little pin on her shirt with a flag he recognized from one of the articles he read earlier. Seeing his face she told him "It's the pride flag", explaining the heritage and meaning once more. She also told him about the way some Christian conservatives fought to get the rainbow back from the gays, who had obviously stolen it from god. He actually let out a startled laugh at that. Ned came by later too, wearing a bracelet to indicate his pronouns around his wrist. It was as if they had been afraid he was one of those bigots that wanted "the gays" out of his neighborhood. When he asked them MJ simply said "You're from the 40s and we didn't want to spring it on you" with a soft smile that told him she'd had suspicions about his embarrassing crush for some time.

It wasn't long after that Peter talked to him about therapy. Sometimes Bucky was still fascinated how grown up the boy seemed once you actually listened to his nearly consistent chatter. He managed to convince Bucky to at least try it, for his sake- obviously while looking at him with those ridiculous big eyes.  
So to therapy he went. At first it felt bad, really bad. Reliving his time as the winter soldier was probably harder than realizing what he had done for the first time. But with time he got better, felt safer and slept through the nights. That was why he started wondering why Peter was still up there with him on the nights he couldn't sleep when he went to therapy himself. "You're my friend, Bucky. And to be honest we're usually quite busy during the day so having a quiet talk then just doesn't seem to be fitting." So the boy had taken to waiting for him up there, sometimes even checking in on him when he didn't show. Bucky was weirdly touched by that, until- "But you really gotta do something about your crush on Steve, Buddy." He nearly choked on his own spit. "Everyone knows you got a giant man-crush on Steve except for Steve, so you gotta get your head out of your ass and tell him so he can get his fine piece into your-" Bucky let out a pointed cough. "I get it." He said, beet red and still shaking.

If only things were as easy between him and Steve now. Back in the day he probably would've walked up to him and told him he liked his ugly mug, but now… For all he knew Steve still thought about him as the Winter Soldier. Hell, the last time they had hugged had been before he went under in Wakanda. He talked about it with his therapist, who told him she couldn't do anything about that. He asked Shuri, Bruce, even Natasha. All of which were zero help, obviously. It got to a point where his love for Steve became the thing that robbed him his sleep.

One early Wednesday morning Steve came in to get Sam for their run and found Steve in front of the TV, crying over a documentary about a lesbian couple that had been together since the 40s. When he saw Steve, he quickly wiped his face with his sleeve, giving him a weak smile and a hoarse "Mornin'" before concentrating back onto what he was watching.  
Steve sent Sam on their run on his own, deciding to stay and continue watching the documentary with Bucky, who was sitting next to him, stiff as a board, barely able to concentrate onto what he was seeing, yet captured enough to have the occasional tear escape his eye. Afterwards, Steve got up and left to go check in with Stark. Bucky spent the whole day thinking about what had happened in the morning. Steve hadn't actually said anything, but was that his nonverbal way of saying "me too"?  
When he asked Peter that very question he had a small smile on his face and told him "Why aren't you asking him?" Their friendship had been going on for so many years, and even though they hadn't really been in touch for the past months it was too precious for Bucky to break off. Silently he decided to just tell Steve the next time he saw him. He couldn't have expected the next time to be in the common room with all the others there while he was sitting in front of Natasha who was practicing her braiding skills on him while Peter applied nail polish to his flesh hand. Bucky was flushing furiously after realizing that coming out and confess his undying love to Steve wasn't exactly what he wanted to do while sporting a fishtail braid and bright pink nails. So he put it off for the next next time.

That same day, when he stepped onto the rooftop of the tower it wasn't Peter waiting for him but Steve. He stopped the second he realized that, hoping he hadn't heard him and halfway turned back when he heard Steve say "I thought you weren't gonna be here tonight." Suddenly self-conscious he turned back around, stepped towards Steve and touched the braid that was still in his hair. Steve looked at him with a soft smile.  
And suddenly things seemed as easy as they had back in the day. Steve smiled, so did he. Bucky said something, Steve (!finally!) kissed him. They talked for a long time that night and Bucky found out that he was, in fact the reason for Steve going into the ice. He found out that Steve hadn't thought of him as the Winter Soldier but been afraid that his time as the Winter Soldier had wiped or altered his memories of their time together. That his love for Bucky had never lessened a bit. 'Huh' he thought to himself 'so Peter really was right about me needing to get my head out of my ass so Steve could get his fine piece into his-' "He said what?!" Steve screeched.  
Bucky just laughed and kissed him again.


End file.
